London Art News

Saturday, 31 March 2012

Here's my favourite politician, electioneering against dazzling lights. The Lady, Aung San Suu Kyi, is standing for a lower house seat in the Kawhmu Township outside Rangoon. If her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), gains anything but a landslide victory, we'll know the polls were rigged. Burma votes on 1 April (title link). Fingers crossed the generals hold their nerve and don't interfere.

Now here's a worthwhile art exhibition with no unnecessary foreign imports: Beauty Or The Beast at Nucleus Art Gallery in Chatham. Nine north Kent artists have formed the No Thames Airport Artists Group to counter the proposal for an airport in the Thames estuary. They hope to negate the glossy artist impressions and visual spin behind the proposal and to show the devastating impact an airport twice the size of Heathrow would have on the health and quality of life of local people, not to mention wildlife. Good luck to them. The show runs until 5 April.

Continuing its policy of trying to bamboozle the Proletariat into thinking that rubbish is art, today the Camden Arts Centre in London opened Zoe Leonard: Observation Point (title link). Gallery 1 is full of Zoe's lousy photos of the sun. Gallery 2 boasts a "sculptural installation" thingy of "found images". Gallery 3 is transformed into a Camera Obscura Installation and yes, that does give you an upside down image. Why on earth should Camden import this pretentious tripe peddler from New York? Even its free admission couldn't drag me to the show. It is high time Camden Council stopped wasting ratepayers' money on its so-called Arts Centre and spent it on something useful, like persuading its foreign residents to abandon circumcising their girls (and boys; let's not be sexist about this).

Friday, 30 March 2012

Another London exhibition opening tomorrow looks at the science behind sport. Beautiful Games at the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green runs until 9 September, admission free. There are over 40 examples of cutting-edge equipment and historic memorabilia. The graphic above shows Computational fluid dynamics analysis of a triathlete, created by Sheffield Hallam University. Fitness freaks can work up a sweat with competitive interactives for all the family (title link). Perfect for school holidays.

Here's another of those Silver Jubilee celebration shows, although this one begins in 1948 with the Festival of Britain. British Design 1948-2012: Innovation in the Modern Age opens tomorrow at the V&A Museum in London and runs until 12 August (title link). It includes every iconic design from Mary Quant’s mini skirt to an E-type Jaguar. A recent entry is a model of Zaha Hadid’s London Aquatics Centre for the Olympic Games. Sadly, the show is a tourist ripoff with tickets costing £12 for adults and £10 for silver surfers. Visit Valentine Mansion for a similar show, but free (CLICK).

Hot off the presses: Sir Les Patterson, the Australian Cultural Attaché, must still be serving on the jury for the Archibald Prize, because they've selected another bummer (title link). If they had any artistic taste they would have chosen Michael Peck's Self-portrait in the image of my son (above), a poignant image of a boy's face under a military helmet, a painting of impeccable photo realism with carefully controlled use of colour. Outstanding. Vincent Fantauzzo's portrait of New Zealand singer-songwriter Kimbra (the build up) is another fine painting. So is Kate Tucker's portrait of another singer-songwriter: Missy Higgins. Project Five street artist Luke Cornish (E.L.K.) made history by being the first stencil artist to reach the finals with his portrait of Father Bob (Mr Grumpy). Click the title link to view the finalists. The show opens tomorrow at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Cameras and smart phones were out in force yesterday for the visit of HM Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh to Valentine Mansion in Ilford. I've combined a happy snapper with the Queen to catch the flavour of the event (title link). Note to BBC News: the postal address of Redbridge is still Essex, despite having been moved to Greater London in 1965. The London Borough of Redbridge refuses to be "East London", where the slums are.

Thursday, 29 March 2012

It seems that every organization in London is jumping on the bandwagon of either the Olympics or the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Transport for London (TfL) is jumping on both (title link). It's producing a limited edition of 250,000 Diamond Jubilee Oyster cards, to be issued in mid May, and 1.5 million Olympic cards, to be issued in mid June. They will cost £10 - £5 deposit and £5 credit for travel - and, if everyone keeps them as souvenirs, TfL will make a small fortune.

Here's a detail from London Looking East by Hartwig Braun. His amusing urban perspectives view capital cities as though through an exaggerated fish-eye lens, exploding into the sky. Note the London Eye. Click the title link for his website. Londoners can visit Arty Globe Ltd at 15 Greenwich Market, SE10 9HZ, to view his work and a range of products, including coffee mugs and a jigsaw (CLICK).

Tomorrow the Albemarle Gallery in Mayfair, London, opens The Nude, a collective exhibition by 17 artists exploring the subject of the nude through each artist's unique interpretation. Shown is Ian Cumberland's Nude on Red Chair (the model's feet are included in the original painting). Admission is free. Click the title link to visit the Albemarle Gallery, which has the most irritating and user-unfriendly Adobe Flash Player routine I've come across in ages. It obviously dislikes XP Professional. Maybe it will work better on your platform. I did manage to view a slide show of exhibits. The exhibition runs until 28 April.

Wednesday, 28 March 2012

For decades identical twins have been fertile ground for psychologists. Nature or nurture? Soppy question, but it attracted funding. Caroline Briggs - herself a twin - has adopted a novel approach. She's taking double exposure photos of identical twins to try to catch individuality within them. The photo above is a double exposure of twins Sophie and Ella. The face is sharp, but the outline is fuzzy round the edges. Click the title link to see more such photos.

No sooner had The Independent published Julian Spalding's article denouncing the "con art" of Damien Hirst and predicting that the Hirst bubble will soon burst and Moneybags' tripe will become worthless than this Hirst Shark Doodle sells for £4,500 (CLICK). Too optimistic, I'm afraid, Julian. Once a tripe peddler has made it big, his rubbish continues to command high prices. Look at Picasso, Henry Moore, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol, to name a handful. The bubble hasn't burst for any of them. Click the title link to read Julian Spalding's article. Tate Passé will stage Damien Hirst from 4 April to 9 September (CLICK). Tickets are £14 or £12.20 for silver surfers. Forget it.

Above is the winning painting of the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize 2012, worth £15,000: Still life with electric fan by Antony Williams (CLICK). Offhand, I can't think of a more boring subject. The exhibition of 98 entries opened today at the Mall Galleries in London. I looked at 70 of these mainly horrible works before I ran out of patience (CLICK). Alongside the Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers' show and promising a far better quality of art is the annual exhibition of The Wapping Group of Artists: London and its River. This group meets every week between April and September to paint en plein air agreed stretches of the River Thames. Below is Paul Banning's excellent Still Evening Queenborough. 100 paintings are on show. Both exhibitions are free with a total of nearly 200 paintings (title link).

Tuesday, 27 March 2012

This lounging nude - Nu adossé I (1925) - by famous Art Deco artist Tamara de Lempicka was last seen in her solo exhibition at Milan's Bottegia di Poesia gallery in 1925, the year it was painted. Since then it had been effectively lost. Last year its current owner contacted Sotheby’s to authenticate it. A photo taken at the 1925 exhibition helped to confirm it was the missing painting (title link). It comes up for sale in Sotheby’s New York auction on 2 May, estimated value a conservative $3-5 million. Sotheby's will show it in London and New York prior to the auction.

Monday, 26 March 2012

Valentine Mansion in Ilford is celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee with The London Pride Festival of Art and Design - 60 years of bright ideas, from 29 March to 1 April. Entrance is free. Exhibitors will include: The Tate Gallery, The Design Museum, The Saatchi Gallery, Central St Martins School of Art and Design, Royal College of Art and London Metropolitan University. Quite a list! Click the title link for all the events at Valentine Mansion and Gardens, including a visit by The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh on Thursday 29 March at 9.30am, part of the Diamond Jubilee Tour.

Is this the silliest hairdo of all time? The graphic is a detail from a Portrait of Queen Mariana of Austria (1653) by Diego Velázquez, who was more interested in recording her gown for posterity than her petulant face. Believe it or not, she's the poster girl for El Greco to Goya: Masterpieces from the Prado Museum, which opened in Puerto Rico's Museo de Arte de Ponce yesterday, the show's only US venue (title link). CLICK to see the complete painting.

Sunday, 25 March 2012

Behold Andy Scott's Kelpie Head, one of two to be erected as part of Scotland's £41 million Helix Project near Falkirk. (A kelpie is a Scottish mythical water horse.) The Nicoll Russell Studios have been awarded the contract for the visitor centre. Click the title link for a slick video and more artists' impressions of the two giant kelpies.

Here's a beautiful example of modern digital art: Shimmering Blues by May Fong using Photoshop CS4 and Intuos 4 tablet. The shaded face, complexion and assertive eyes are superb, but May found the shimmering blue scarf the hardest challenge, experimenting with different techniques to avoid weaving it thread by thread. May describes herself as a part-time freelance artist. I chanced upon her work on Google +. Wow! Click the title link to view more of her terrific pictures.

Now that we've all gone through the insane rigmarole of putting our various timepieces forward an hour, the day is half gone. What a waste of time! Sam Worthington's expression as Jake Sully's avatar says it all for me. When will our politicians abolish this twice-yearly lunacy? Channel 4 is celebrating British Summer Time with the TV premiere of James Cameron's sci-fi blockbuster Avatar (2009) at 5.50pm today. Will this modern art live up to its hype?

Saturday, 24 March 2012

Since last year I've been intrigued by the dictatorial decision of Maine Governor Paul LePage to remove Judy Taylor's mural from the Department of Labor building in Augusta and hide it in a secret location (CLICK). On Friday, Federal Judge John Woodcock upheld the Maine Dictatorship and to hell with the Berne Convention on artists' rights (title link). This is the same judge who found in favour of Dictator LePage in April 2011 (CLICK). He seems to have been promoted since then. The graphic shows Jessica Graham in the Department of Labor building's lobby in Augusta on 25 March 2011 commemorating the 100th anniversary of the New York Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed 146 garment workers. Dictator LePage had the mural removed later that same month! (Title link for full photo.)

Fat Cat Chancellor

Here's Kaya Mar's take on George Osborne's recent budget. Mar's painting, which he is carrying outside the Houses of Parliament, depicts the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a fat cat pulling carrots out of his top hat to persuade businesses to get cracking. Fair comment, but I think a political cartoon would have got the message across just as well. Lighter to carry too.

I previewed The Body Adorned: Dressing London back in February (CLICK). It opened today at the Horniman Museum in London, a free exhibition exploring how body adornment has become part of London life across times and cultures (title link). Here's Horniman's YouTube video of the show. It's a bit hectic, designed for the body-piercing generation.

Friday, 23 March 2012

If you're a photography buff, note these dates in your diary. From 27 April to 20 May Somerset House in London will show the Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition in its Embankment Galleries, South Wing (admission £7.50). Alongside this show, World Photo London will return to Somerset House for its annual weekend of events, 27-29 April (title link). Open and Youth category winners have already been announced. One of my favourites is Spring Time by Krzysztof Browko from Poland, Open Category Winner, Travel. CLICK for The Telegraph slide show. Overall winners will be announced at the Sony World Photography Awards Gala Ceremony, Hilton Hotel, London, 26 April.

The Art Newspaper has published its Top 10 Museums and Art Galleries in the World for 2011. The Louvre in Paris received just under 9 million visitors, while the Musée d'Orsay, also in Paris, received just over 3 million visitors. London did well with the British Museum, the National Gallery and Tate Modern pulling in about 5 million each. The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC attracted 4 million visitors, the Met in New york 6 million (title link).

Good news for Welsh badgers: Environment Minister John Griffiths has taken note of the scientific evidence and has decided to cancel plans to cull badgers in Wales. Instead he has opted to vaccinate badgers against bovine TB, which they catch from infected cattle (title link). Sense at last! The fatheads in England still plan to go ahead with their futile cull. The Badger Trust has launched a new legal challenge against the English lunacy (CLICK).

Yesterday Philip Mould & Co of Dover Street, London, opened The Painted Face During The Age of Photography, an exhibition of miniature portraits curated by specialist Emma Rutherford. Shown is Charles Turrell's Portrait of Princess Alexandra (1886). Click the title link for other pictures. The exhibition runs until 27 March.

Wednesday, 21 March 2012

During his budget speech in the House of Commons today, Chancellor George Osborne gave Aardman Animations' Wallace and Gromit a special mention: "It is the determined policy of this government that we keep Wallace and Gromit exactly where they are" (CLICK). I assume he meant in Britain. Cheers in the House. He plans to introduce corporation tax relief from April 2013 for the animation, video games and high-end television industries (title link).

On the left is Van Gogh's Still Life With Meadow Flowers and Roses, which was deemed too uncharacteristic to be one of his paintings. However, when it was subjected to X-ray examination the painting of half naked Wrestlers above was discovered beneath the floral work. This also looks too good to be by Van Gogh, but a letter he wrote to his brother remarks how pleased he was with his painting of wrestlers. Its style is typical of the Antwerp academy at that time. Pigments and brushstrokes also point to Van Gogh. Now authenticated, the floral painting has been hung in the Van Gogh section of the Kroeller-Mueller museum in Otterlo for the first time. So why did Van Gogh overpaint his wrestlers? No buyer? Too gay-looking? Needed a canvas? Click the title link for details.

Next Monday 26 March Kensington Palace will open to the public after a two-year renovation costing £12m. A new 10-acre garden created to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee will also be opened. The palace is destined to be the London home of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. CLICK for a BBC News' slide show. CLICK for a BBC London News' video tour featuring the charming but chubby Alice Bhandhukravi. The title link takes you to the rubbishy official website.

Tuesday, 20 March 2012

In the Palace of Westminster today British artist John Reyntiens unveiled his stained-glass window created to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. It will go on permanent display above the North Door of Westminster Hall later this year. It was paid for by a whip-round of members of both houses of Parliament, as a gift to the Queen. Up to 1,500 pieces of glass were used to create a golden lion and white unicorn on either side of the Royal coat of arms.

Last May I posted news of a rare theft in China's Forbidden City (CLICK). Yesterday the thief stood trial in the Second Intermediate People's Court in Beijing and received a 13-year sentence plus a fine of $2,100. They don't mess about in China. Probation reports? You've got to be joking. Guilty as charged; slam, dunk; 13 years; next case. British and American lawyers would starve if their legal systems were as simplistic as this. Farmer Shi Baikui [Defender] admitted he stole the bejewelled pieces on the spur of the moment. Three items are still missing (title link).

Monday, 19 March 2012

Here's a blast from the past. To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the The Dandy, the UK's longest-running comic, Royal Mail will issue a set of 10 first class comics stamps featuring Dennis the Menace, Desperate Dan, Roy of the Rovers, Eagle, The Topper And Tiger, Bunty, Buster, Valiant, Twinkle and 2000AD. Stamps and first day covers will be issued tomorrow. Anyone sending a Dan Dare first day cover from outer space will have a collectible worth a fortune! Click the title link for the Royal Mail Comics Stamps page, CLICK for BBC News' graphics of 6 of the new stamps.

Sunday, 18 March 2012

To mark its 71st anniversary, The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC has launched NGA Images, a major online resource of more than 20,000 open access digital images, up to 3,000 pixels each, available free of charge for download and use. You can also create a "lightbox", your own collection of NGA images which you may share via e-mail or copy to social media sites. You will need to register to download pictures. I chose Jean-Honoré Fragonard's beautiful Young Girl Reading (c. 1770) which would be better entitled "Young Lady Reading", because she is nubile, literate and wearing an expensive dress. Click the title link for NGA Images.

Saturday, 17 March 2012

Here are two news items about computer art that fit together nicely. Firstly, Valve's Portal 2 won best game and best design at the BAFTA Video Game Awards yesterday. It won the Golden Joystick last year. Above is Chell, your character who guides the escapee robot of Portal 2. CLICK for a list of winners. Secondly, the Smithsonian American Art Museum has just opened The Art of Video Games, which it claims is one of the first exhibitions in the world to explore the evolution of video games as an artistic medium (title link). This prompted BBC News' Washington correspondent, Jane O'Brien, to gush, "Video games represent more than an evolving form of entertainment. They are also a platform for innovative art" (CLICK). Strewth! The BBC has finally woken up! I've been saying this for decades.

The visit of Prince Charles and his wife and daughter-in-law Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, to Dulwich Picture Gallery on Thursday proved a success. Local schoolchildren eagerly gathered round to show the royal visitors what they've gained from The Prince's Foundation for Children and the Arts. Here we see Kate showing the girls how to make ironing look sexy, while Prince Charles is obviously wondering what to do with this strange gadget. "Is this thing on?" he wonders. HRH would have been happier using traditional paint brushes to create art. He is a talented amateur artist, but tends to keep his light under a bushel. Click the title link for a BBC video of the visit.

Friday, 16 March 2012

The website for Warner Bros Studio Tour London: The Making of Harry Potter has pulled out all the stops, with roiling thunderclouds, torches flickering in the Hogwarts eatery and the stirring Harry Potter theme music by John Williams (title link). This 1:24 Scale Model of Hogwarts gives you an idea of the goodies on offer. CLICK for The Telegraph's slide show. Although Warner Bros claims the studio is in London, it's actually 20 miles to the northwest in Watford. You must book tickets in advance and, as you might expect, they cost an arm and a leg: £28 for adults, £21 for children aged from 5 to 15 years and £83 for families (2 + 2). The red-carpet Grand Opening is on 31 March.

Seeing Paddington Bear after so many years reminded me of another TV animation series of similar vintage: The Mysterious Cities of Gold. This was a Japanese-French co-production which clearly had a much bigger budget than Paddington. Catchy theme tune too. I used to watch it with my five-year-old son. He had a crush on the Inca girl Zia (shown). If anyone fancies a nostalgia trip, the complete series is on DVD for around £30. Check eBay (title link).

An online poll to determine the UK's Favourite Ever British Animated Character of all time was won by that illegal immigrant from Darkest Peru Paddington Bear, created by Michael Bond. The winner was announced at the British Animation Awards in London yesterday. I assume adult nostalgia dominated the voting, because the animation dates from the 1970's and 80's and was nothing to rave about, a novel but rather creaky mixture of 2D and 3D as though Paddington were an actor walking through his own storyboard. View the YouTube video to see what I mean. Michael Hordern's narration greatly enhanced these short animations made by Filmfair and directed by Ivor Wood. Click the title link for other BAA winners.

Thursday, 15 March 2012

Any budding animators out there? Among the many events at Somerset House this month is an Aardman Model Making Workshop on Saturday 24 March. There will be three one-hour sessions run by Aardman model maker Jim Parkyn between 11am and 5pm. Jim has worked on Gromit as well as on innumerable bunnies. This event is free and is likely to be oversubscribed. Tickets will be issued on a first-come-first-served basis on the day (title link). Go early in the morning to avoid disappointing your cherub. Or yourself.

Last December I wrote two posts on the high-profile case of an Afghan woman known as Gulnaz, who had been raped by her cousin's husband and had been sentenced to two years in prison - increased to 10 years on appeal - for the "moral crime" of being a rape victim (CLICK). President Hamid Karzai came under enormous international pressure and pardoned Gulnaz on condition she marry her rapist (CLICK). Shown is a photo of Kimberley Motley, Gulnaz's lawyer, who was a US beauty queen before moving to Afghanistan four years ago. She is the country's only foreign defence lawyer and gained the pardon for Gulnaz. BBC News Magazine has posted an interesting article about Kimberley (title link). A brave woman.

If you were thinking of visiting Dulwich Picture Gallery today, forget it. The gallery will be closed to the public all day for a royal visit in recognition of its educational and outreach work (title link). The Prince of Wales will be visiting in his capacity as President of The Prince's Foundation for Children & the Arts. He'll be bringing the wife, Duchess of Cornwall, and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, to view the kiddie artwork on display.

Wednesday, 14 March 2012

Today the National Gallery in London opened its spring biggy: Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude. The title refers to Claude Gellée, who was born in the Duchy of Lorraine, and is better known as Claude Lorrain (Claude of Lorrain). Turner was inspired by Claude's brilliant use of light in his paintings. Above is Turner's Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Night (1835). The bad news, as always, is the cost of admission: adults £12, silver surfers £11 (91.6%). Pensioners ripoff! There are so many free exhibitions in London that paying over the odds is foolish. Click the title link if you feel silly!

Today a pre-auction exhibition by some of the worst artists in Britain opened at Somerset House. They have kindly donated their tripe to a sale in aid of the homeless charity Crisis. BBC News has posted a slide show of some of the appalling rubbish on offer (title link). Gillian Wearing's sculpture of Craig O'Keefe just about passes muster, but needs a placard to tell his story. Jonathan Yeo's The Park Bench is outstanding, capturing the essence of homelessness in a most artistic way; his subjects have dignity. But the rest...! Clearly there is a crisis in British art as well in its housing. The Crisis Commission shuffles along until 22 April. The charity auction takes place at Christie's on 3 May.Correction: Somerset House, NOT Christie's (CLICK).

Tuesday, 13 March 2012

The Royal College of Surgeons' Hunterian Museum at Lincoln's Inn Fields in London has jumped on the Olympics bandwagon. Today it opened Anatomy of an Athlete: Elite sport, surgery and medical art, which runs until 29 September (title link). Four top medical artists from the Medical Artists’ Association of Great Britain have created new artworks. Shown is artist Emily Evans standing beside one of her Hurdles illustrations (2012). CLICK for a BBC slide show.

A research team sponsored by the US National Geographic Society has been drilling holes in Giorgio Vasari's fresco The Battle of Marciano in the Museo di Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, in hopes of finding Leonardo da Vinci's unfinished work The Battle of Anghiari. Project workers claim a black pigment found through the holes is the same as that used in the Mona Lisa and unique to Leonardo (title link). BBC News has published a video on the subject (CLICK).

Monday, 12 March 2012

I first saw Hayley Okines in 2005 in Channel 5's Extraordinary People series. She suffers from progeria, a rare genetic condition that ages a child by about 8 years for every year of life. She was warned she wouldn't live beyond the age of 13. In December 2011 she reached her 14th birthday. Her body is now roughly 112 years old. She is such a terrific kid that she's become the poster girl for progeria. I posted a blog about her in 2008 (CLICK). She even has her own website (CLICK). And with the help of her mother Kerry she has now published a book: Old Before my Time (title link).

The organisers of the annual Weston-super-Mare Sand Sculpture Festival have issued an appeal for £50k's worth of sponsorship (CLICK). Due to Government cutbacks, North Somerset Council can no longer afford to pay for the event, although its name still appears on the official website (title link). Somebody should have applied for funds earmarked for the Cultural Olympiad, which promises to be a dreadful load of twaddle. The Sand Sculpture Festival attracts world-class figurative artists who produce very fine work, as you can see from this photo of a baby elephant resting on his mother.

Sunday, 11 March 2012

If you have 7 minutes to spare on a Sunday evening, take a look at Quantic Dream's movie-quality animation Kara. Click the box in the bottom right corner of the YouTube screen to enlarge the picture, then click Esc when it has finished.Kara's voice by Valorie CurryThe Operator's voice by Tercelin KirtleyWritten and directed by David CageCreated by Quantic Dream (title link).

From 14 to 25 March the Mall Galleries in London will show the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 200th Exhibition since it was founded in 1831. A wide range of methods and styles in water-soluble media by some of the country’s best-known painters will be on display (title link). The example shown is a detail from Anne McCormack's Moroccan Window. Admission is £2.50 adults, £1.50 silver surfers. A host of awards will be presented (CLICK).